Quotes About Language

Words do not necessarily make us moral. And there have been presidents before who have stumbled over syntax and looked foolish when the words they have been forced to speak have been their own. But Trump is uniquely stunted. A child listening to two of his speeches could reproduce a third without the use of a dictionary.

Every sport, every profession, every group united by a single passion draws on a lexicon that is uniquely theirs, and theirs for a reason.

Evolution explains our biological evolution, but human beings are very unique creatures. As the Dobzhansky said, all animals are unique; humans are the uniquest. And that uniqueness of being human, language, art, culture, our dependency on culture for survival, comes from the combination of traditional biological evolution.

New York City is home to so many people from so many places and the uniqueness of it is that you never feel a foreigner. English is almost hardly ever heard in the subway. In fact, it's weird.

The rhythmical unit of the syllable is at the back of all of it - the word, the phrase, the sentence, the syntax, the paragraph, and the way the heart moves when you read it.

I like that I can write my name in Persian, and it's a small unit, like a graphical unit. I feel the same way about my name in English, it's a graphical unit.

State unit of BJP will protect the rights of Tamil Nadu people and we will not back off from our attempts to bring glory to Tamil language.

America's strength is not our diversity; our strength is our ability to unite people of different backgrounds around common principles. A common language is necessary to reach that goal.

If there's anything that would unite the world, it would be music.

I have a very awesome seat in the house every time I play. When the lights come up, and the sound turns on, I'm playing for a roomful of human beings. And geographical and political borders just all dissolve. And we unite through rhythm inhalation. I mean, I'm so grateful that, you know, audiences around the world connect to English music.

The Charter of the United Nations expresses the noblest aspirations of man: abjuration of force in the settlement of disputes between states; the assurance of human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion; the safeguarding of international peace and security.

Scientists in different disciplines don't speak the same language. They publish in different journals. It's like the United Nations: You come together, but no one speaks the same language, so you need some translators.

Readers have told me that their children have learned to read after years of struggle after starting to read Garfield's comic strip and many people who have moved to the United States have said that they, too, learned English by reading Garfield.

And instead of getting a pepper-and-salt effect, we find very clear and sharp divisions between the dialects of the United States, which are getting more different from each other as time goes on.

The CIA will only hire people with impeccable credentials to be a translator. 'Impeccable credentials' means you've never lived outside the United States.

It cannot be said that the Constitution formed 'the people of the United States,' for all time, into a corporation. It does not speak of 'the people' as a corporation, but as individuals. A corporation does not describe itself as 'we,' nor as 'people,' nor as 'ourselves.' Nor does a corporation, in legal language, have any 'posterity.'

I'm a professor of comparative literature, among other things, so I'm able to read in a couple of other languages, and I understand that not everyone is, not everyone can, although it is quite stunning how many people do read Spanish in the United States, but moving between languages is also extremely helpful.

Between France and Senegal there's a history. There's a language that we both speak. There's a culture that we share and to which both of our peoples have contributed. But beyond our history, beyond our language, beyond the links that have united us for so long, what unites us today is the future.

Language is essentially tribal, so jargon can actually be a really good thing because it unites people.

The genius of the French language, descended from its single Latin stock, has triumphed most in the contrary direction - in simplicity, in unity, in clarity, and in restraint.

The fundamental purpose of a novel like Count Julian is to achieve the unity of object and means of representation, the fusion of treason as scheme and treason as language.

If particulars are to have meaning, there must be universals.

To me, music is entertainment - what else can it be? In fact, it's the only language I know of that's universal.

It's perfectly obvious that there is some genetic factor that distinguishes humans from other animals and that it is language-specific. The theory of that genetic component, whatever it turns out to be, is what is called universal grammar.